Liu Xiang can’t hurdle injury woes at London Olympics

Cam Cole, Vancouver Sun columnist08.07.2012

A combination of pictures shows Chinese athlete Liu Xiang as he falls while competing in the men's 110m hurdles heats at the athletics event of the London 2012 Olympic Games on August 7, 2012.Staff
/ AFP/GettyImages

In this combination of three photos, China's Liu Xiang, second left, falls during a men's 110-meter hurdles heat during the athletics in the Olympic Stadium at the 2012 Summer Olympics, London, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012. Competing with Liu are from left to right: Poland's Artur Noga, Hungary's Balazs Baji, and Barbados' Shane Brathwaite.Daniel Ochoa De Olza
/ AP

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LONDON — Among a group of Chinese journalists at the moment Liu Xiang’s extended left heel knocked over the first hurdle Tuesday morning, the collective intake of breath and exhalation of a mournful “Ohhh!” were all but simultaneous.

He sat on the track of the London Olympic Stadium then, as the race clattered away from him, and it was impossible not to think of Canada’s Perdita Felicien sitting in a similar spot in Athens — one hurdle down, and an Olympic quadrennial gone.

A Chinese TV commentator wept on-air, reporting Liu’s misfortune. Another urged his countrymen to be sympathetic, and to be grateful for what Liu had given China. It was, all in all, goodbye.

For this wasn’t the first time.

Liu won the 110-metre hurdles in 12.91 seconds (still the Olympic record) at Athens in 2004 as a 21-year-old, followed it with a world championship in 2007 and became a Chinese sporting icon so luminous that by the time the Beijing Olympics rolled round, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s preview issue.

But he broke the host nation’s heart, and his own, when he was forced to withdraw with an Achilles injury, just two strides into the hurdles in Beijing. Two Olympics in a row, and not a single hurdle cleared.

It was that same right Achilles he clutched Tuesday as he sat on the London track, his cheeks puffing with the pain, struggling to get up, wearing the same “lucky” number on the back of his singlet, 1356, that he had worn in 2008.

After a couple of attempts, he finally dragged himself to his feet. While those who had finished the race were bending over to catch their breath or glancing back at the Chinese legend, Liu hopped off toward the tunnel where the athletes enter the track, refusing the offer of a wheelchair.

What happened next is the stuff of highlight reels, of indelible Olympic moments.

And if part of it was Hollywood histrionics — the Chinese love NBA basketball, after all — the rest was as real as it gets.

Almost under the stands and gone from sight, Liu suddenly stopped, faced the track as if it were an opponent he would not allow to defeat him, and returned, on his left foot, to within a few feet of the outside lane.

Some say a volunteer stopped him and directed him to return to the track for medical attention. It didn’t look that way on TV. He seemed to make his own decision and brushed past a volunteer on his way back.

He finished the rest of the 110 metres on one foot, but before he got to the end, he veered in to Lane 4, where he had begun, and bent to kiss the last hurdle, then continued to the finish line where Hungary’s Balazs Baji braced him with one arm and raised the Chinese hurdler’s hand aloft with the other.

“I respect him. I like him,” said Baji, who finished fifth in the heat. “It must be really bad for him. I’m really sorry. I didn’t say anything. I just couldn’t say anything.”

The sellout crowd in the 80,000-seat stadium had begun cheering as soon as Liu had reappeared from under the stands. Now many were on their feet, as Andrew Turner of Britain and Jackson Quinonez of Spain helped Liu off the track, where medical personnel took over.

“I regard him as the best hurdler in history and I have so much respect for him,” said Turner, who won the heat.

“I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. It was horrible to see him limp off like that, so I had to go and help him. When you medal with someone you have a connection with them and, after last year [at the world championships] in Daegu, we always say hello and try and have a chat. He’s a nice guy.”

Turner had seen him warming up and sensed that the Achilles was a problem. Indeed, Liu’s coach Sun Haiping had admitted last week that the 29-year-old had experienced problems with the leg at a training camp in Germany. He had pulled out of a Diamond League meet in London in July, citing a back problem.

Then came Tuesday, and the final heat began badly all around.

In Lane 5, to Liu’s immediate right, Poland’s Artur Noga pulled up out of the blocks, clutching his right quad, while in Lane 2, Shane Braithwaite of Barbados also struck the first barrier and went down. But even as the remaining hurdlers were crossing the line, most eyes returned to the sad tableau in Lane 4.

“We’ve all seen how hard it is for him,” the Chinese track team leader, Fenn Shuyong, said in a news conference at the stadium. “It’s such a pity, but his spirit is there. It is the true Olympic spirit, that winning is not so important, participation is what matters.”

So is finishing, as injured Canadian triathlete Paula Findlay had also done despite her pain a few days earlier, which perhaps is why Liu was determined not to leave without at least that small victory.

He is not thinking of retiring, said the team leader.

And yet, the unofficial indicators — weeping TV commentators, others bidding him farewell on China’s equivalent of Twitter — seem to point to the other outcome.

“The injury is the same one he had in Beijing. He has had good medical care, but it is still there,” said Fenn. “An Achilles injury is almost impossible to fully recover from.”

Almost? Liu Xiang is 29. In the context of an Olympic future, the adverb was only there out of respect.

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